


Before Sunrise

by LadyHatake



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: F/M, Hunters, Keith Lumley is a Badass, Profanity, RE: Revelations Centric, Reader is an FBC Member, Reader's last name is Foley, Serious Injuries, Survival Horror, Terragrigia-based
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27193177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyHatake/pseuds/LadyHatake
Summary: Your mission was to evacuate any citizens of Terragrigia still trapped in the communications center. Well, mission success. Though, over the last few hours you'd been chased, electrocuted, half-drowned, maimed, and for all you know, you could have been left behind. You'd lost all communication with the higher-ups. In exchange, your comms unit had tuned into the conversation of a couple of arguing idiots who could only be Neo-Umbrella agents...and one ofthemis in trouble.Alternatively: a day in the life of an FBC member.
Relationships: Keith Lumley/Reader
Kudos: 1





	Before Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> I did it for the lulz! Purely self-indulgent! This is a reader-centric fic, focusing on the trials of an FBC member trying to fight her way out of Terragrigia. Definitely not a romance fic, but it'll be there if you squint! :)

This was chalking up to one of the worst days of your life, and it was only one o’clock in the afternoon.

“I’m trying, guys, hold on!” You tried not to let the frustration seep into your voice as you plotted a course for the third escape-capsule, all the while trying not to get zapped again or make any mistakes on the Italian-only controls. Your multilingual skills were rusty, but switched every sentence or so from English to Italian, to Spanish. This was fucking chaos. 

“Everything’s gonna be fine. Sii forte! Todo esta bien!" [ _Be strong! Everything is fine_!]

Despite your assuring words, you were putting up a valiant effort not to get distracted by the hushed sniffles and panicked prayers behind you. 

You weren’t even sure half of them could understand you, aside from a few who’d already spoken to you in English. For the most part, you were better at reading Italian than speaking it, and in moments like these, you were immensely happy to have translators. 

“We still got water rushing in here!” A particularly helpful civilian, Miguel, shouted from the back of the room somewhere. A Spaniard, by the sounds of him, he’d been helping to keep everyone calm since you’d arrived in the underwater docks. 

Freakin’ weird. The controls for the transport subs were more complex and high-tech than you’d anticipated, almost requiring a much more advanced digital literacy than you possessed. You’d been trying to get them fired up and set for the correct destination for the past fifteen minutes. 

Le Castella, on the south-east coast of Italy would be your safest bet, and you relayed that to Lt. Luciani as quickly as you could. Terragrigia apparently moved in slow cycles throughout the year, and right now it would be far closer to Italy’s eastern border than anywhere near Greece or Libya. 

“Alright. I can send the first three pods out.” You addressed the room behind you, a crowd of about forty people you’d led from the massive working space below sea-level of the communications center. 

“Ella solo puede enviar los primeros tres.” [ _She can only send the first three_.] The civilian standing guard at the only door in and out of the transport room spoke over the sound of rushing water from the other side of the doors. “Hasta que ella termine con los demás.” [ _Until she's done with the others_.]

“Per favore, stai calmo.” [ _Please, stay calm._ ] You spoke in rough Italian as you filed eight people into each sub— the maximum capacity. Before you closed the doors, you asked your new friend to relay the last bits of information to them in Spanish and Italian, as the language it would take was too advanced for you to even attempt. 

The pods would shoot through the nearest escape route, then resurface roughly a mile away from the launch site. They would then reroute towards La Castella, nearly two hundred miles away, using jet-ski like technology to propel them toward the Italian Coast— a far safer method of travel for civilians than travelling underwater. All the while, the pods were programmed to send out emergency signals via radio. 

You just hoped everything would go well. You’d been unable to change the base language from Italian to English, or hell, even Spanish. Most of the people around you had been too frightened or clueless to help you out. 

“Alright! The last of you can fit into these two!” You waved them on, accepting a pat on the cheek from one older woman who didn’t get in the first three pods. It was those moments, knowing that you were helping to save good lives that made everything worth it. 

Even the numbness in your fingers from how many times the fucking controls had shocked you and then had to reboot. _Shit._ You really hoped everything would be fine. 

“Alright, Miguel, time to get on.” You smiled at the civilian, who stepped into the pod and looked back at you expectantly. 

Shaking your head, you stuck out your hand for a hand-shake. He’d been such a great help, especially in the beginning, when you’d been trying to shut the door, and had been attacked by mutated goldfish. Those suckers were fucking fierce, and if he hadn’t come running out with a broken coat-hanger of all things, you might be dead. For that matter, you’d probably all be dead. 

“Not me, amigo. There’s still work to do here. I gotta make sure _no one_ gets left behind.” You smiled. Once more, the knowledge that you were helping people in need gave you strength. 

“Let me stay with you.” He tried stepping back out, but you held up a hand and steadied him before he could. 

“Impossible.” You shook your head, smiling once more to try and comfort him as he looked on helplessly. “I need you to stay with these people. They need someone strong to get them through this.” 

“I…I—” Miguel looked on in dismay and growing restlessness. 

You weren’t lying— even the most helpful of the other citizens still only had half of his composure. “What’ll they do without you?” 

“But…but you’ll drown! This place will _ir bajo el agua_! Por favor venga señorita! Entrar rápidamente!” [ _This place will go underwater! Please, come along, miss. Enter quickly!_ ]

“Lo siento. Estaré bien, lo prometon!” [ _I’m sorry. I’ll be okay, I promise!_ ] You apologized quickly, letting him know with your voice that you appreciated his compassion and strength. With one last look, you closed the pod, but not before the kind Spaniard took your hand with a final, conflicted look, before planting a small kiss against your knuckles. 

“Please. Be safe, señorita.” 

It wasn’t long after you’d sent the pods on their way that you readied your knife and prepared to step out into the BOW-infested hallway. Last you checked, there had been at least half a dozen more mutated goldfish out there…and they were about ten times bigger than they should be, with spiky, rusty scales and evil red eyes. 

Fuck this. All those civvies you just got out? You were _so_ relieved, but still fuck this. These goldfish were worse than the hunters. Parker was proud of you for doing so well on your first official mission for the FBC? _Fuck. This. Shit._

With a sigh, and the knowledge that you would regret what was going to transpire, you clutched a shock grenade in your hand and held it to your lips, much like Miguel had done to your knuckles not four minutes earlier. 

Inching open the door, you peeked outside the emergency escape room and winced as a mutated fish wrenched its ugly face around to look at you. Before it could move, you once again slammed the door and flinched as you felt the impact of the fish’s head hitting the metal. Jesus Christ. 

Procuring a small miracle from a pocket of your vest, you leaned against the door once more. You bit your lip. Your team’s mission had been to get the civilians of the communications center out of the building and into the escape pods, asap. Check one. 

Now, to see if there was anyone else out there who needed your help…the work of an FBC member was never done. 

“Come on, baby, work with me.” You told the grenade. It was your last one. Even with the amount of freezing cold water splashing up to your knees, and your newly-numbed fingers, this was gonna hurt. 

Opening the door in a hurry, you pulled the pin and threw the explosive, slamming the door and plugging your ear on that side. The sound of screeching fish lasted only a moment before the grenade went off, and all sound ceased save the small sizzling of settling water. Huffing a sigh, you opened the door with relief and immediately screamed as you were jumped by a bloodied monstrosity the size of a large dog. 

The fucking grenade missed one! 

Falling backwards into the water, you managed to bat the thing away from your face and choked on water as your arm was met with the hot tearing sensation of a new wound. Struggling to the surface of the now waist-deep water, you coughed a rather unattractive wet sound and ducked just in time to evade another killing strike. 

“Fucking hell!” 

Gasping and coughing in surprise, you tried dodging another leap from the not-so-little fucker, but screamed as it’s needle-tipped fins grazed your face and shoulder. You had no choice then but to keep your left eye closed in pain as the fish darted around you. 

“Sergeant Major! Copy! What the hell is all that commotion?!” You heard your First Lieutenant cry over your comms unit but paid no mind as you pulled a large knife from the confines of its sheath across your lower back. “Sergeant Major!” 

Scanning the waters with one wavering eye, you struck out with the knife at the first sign of movement and managed to bury the blade deep within the side of the fish. Though not at zero cost; as you pulled away, your arm was caught in several spikes of the fish’s protruding spine. 

“Augh!” You grunted, still coughing and dropping the fish in the stained water along with your knife. A couple of spines still poked out of your skin, and you grit your teeth against the pain. 

You could still hear your commanding officer calling your name— your proper name, now. He sounded panicked. “Answer me! Sergeant Major!” 

“Yes…sir!” You coughed, your hand shaking in shock and pain from the foreign items lodged in your flesh. “I’m alright! Civvies have been ejected…from Terragrigia via the e-escape pods.” 

“Your status?” 

“Injured.” You relayed regrettably, feeling the flesh just below your eye and flinching hard from the white-hot pain. “There are mutated fish in the basement of the communications building. One got me in the eye…” 

You swallowed, trying to sound unaffected but in reality, you were just barely biting back tears. “And the…arm.” 

“Christ.” Parker swore, your comms unit screeching with interference from something you couldn’t see. “Any abnormalities of the wound?” 

“I haven’t mutated, if that’s what your wondering.” You choked out, hating how weak you sounded, but _fuck_ did your face hurt. “Not yet, at any rate. I’m going to see if there’s anyone left on the upper floors.” 

“Can you find a path out?” 

“I think it’s all clear. I might’ve gotten them all by now…the fish, I mean.” 

“Good work, soldier.” Parker praised, sounding as though he wanted nothing more than to just reassure you of the situation, but couldn’t. “Updates on your team?” 

“No one has appeared yet. This is where we were supposed to meet up.” You forced out regrettably. Your teammates had been separated from you in a fight with a group of hunters on the upper floors. 

That was ages ago now— you were the only one to make it to the stairway and close the door on the hunters. You’d looked back, but no one had been following you…and no one had showed up after three minutes of waiting and calling them over your malfunctioning comms unit. As a matter of fact, it could do the same any second. 

“Keep moving and keep in touch. Sergeant Sherawat and I are moving in on the communications building now, but it’s hell out here. Might take us a while to get to you.” 

“Right. Copy.” You swallowed, trying and failing to get the first spine stuck in your forearm out. You coughed again and grit your teeth. 

“Hang in there, SM. Over and out.” You released a breath as you pulled once more and only succeeded in nearly making yourself pass out. 

Alright…maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to get the spines out. The bandages you possessed may not be able to keep up with the bleeding anyhow. At least, this way, you were in less danger of bleeding out. Your arm on the other hand, would need to be bandaged…now! 

Pulling a wet roll of cloth from your pant pocket, you startled and were knocked back by the sudden rush of water coming from the only door in and out. Once you had stumbled and gotten to your feet once more, you sputtered and eyed the wreckage that had fallen from above. 

A broken stairway had fallen from one of the upper floors and demolished the one leading up from the basement. Just fucking great. Now you had an injured arm, and you couldn’t even walk up the stairs to get to ground— er, _sea_ level. 

Oh yeah, and your bandage had fallen out of your grasp and into the blood-infected waters as well. You’d already been impaled by a fish’s bones, and fallen into the dirty water once…if you wrapped your wounds with that and squeezed the water out of it now, you would definitely mutate into whatever form the virus that got these fish took in a human being. 

Great. _Just fucking great._

Grimacing, you took out your first aid spray and pressed down on the button, hearing more than seeing the final fumes of the stuff wash over the arm the fish had scratched. Giving the last pathetic spray of green-tinted antiseptic to your left eye, you threw down the empty can. Hoping that the few drops that had been left in the cannister would be enough to slow your bleeding, you shoved the door of the escape room wide open and prepared to push forward.

* * *

“ _Jackass here_.” You choked on what might’ve been a laugh or a distasteful scoff as you leaped around a corner painfully, just in time to avoid the godforsaken claws of a hunter. “ _I made it to the command room, but this place is crawling with those freaks!_ Literally crawling!!” 

You’d only just climbed your way to an upper level storage unit of the basement, and already, you were having problems. Just one of them being the voice that had just screeched it’s way into the audio of your comms unit. 

You’d had to ascend back down once already, leaving your arm bleeding a steady drip of crimson and your head throbbing. Your left knee felt like it was on fire from a fall you’d taken five minutes before, and the water had risen even more than it was when you’d left. If you were even twenty feet below your current floor, you’d be swimming right now. 

“ _I need backup! Fucking ASAP! The whole place is overrun with them, and I can’t find a way past!_ ” The nasally-voiced man, assumedly an enemy soldier, hissed over the comms unit, a little quieter now. “ _I think I overshot the meet-up point_!” 

“ _You think?! How the_ hell _did you manage to get yourself lost, man_?” A second voice joined the first over your unit and you wanted to scream at them to shut the fuck up as their obnoxious voices drew even more reptilian BOW’s to your position. 

Frantically, you fired off another few rounds of buckshot before scrambling backwards. One hunter had fallen, and three more had just taken their place as the two idiots jabbered on. You wanted to throw the communications device far away, but there just wasn’t any way you could afford to lose it right now. 

Shooting one hunter in the face, and knocking back one more with another shot, you darted past the third and around another corner. Feeling a _whoosh_ of cold air behind you, you knew you’d just evaded certain death by a hair’s breadth as a hunter’s heavy swipe missed your head. 

Running as fast as you could with one eye, your injured leg, and a still-spiky arm, you crawled more than ran up the first set of stairs and dove into an elevator, throwing your second-to-last flash bang behind you to buy yourself time. 

Almost punching the ‘ _vicina_ ’ [close] button on the elevator controls, you closed your eye at the ring of the grenade, and turned frantically to give an agonizing kick to the chest of a rather large and almost black-looking hunter. Your leg exploded in pain, and you screamed as you staggered back on your good leg. 

At long last, the elevator closed and with a rumble, began ascending to the first floor. Through your pain, you couldn’t believe it! The piece of shit…still worked! 

Sighing a huge breath, you stumbled back and groaned as the pain in your everything throbbed all at once. Holding a hand over your eye, you finally slid to the floor and let your rifle rest on the metal panels. Unfortunately, a moment of peace later and the whole elevator stalled— shaking in place before stopping completely. 

Evidently, your luck was short-lived. Half way to the next floor found the metal box stalling in it’s chute, leaving you just a glimpse of _Pavimento 2_. A foot and a half’s width, _maybe_ through the sliding door’s windows. 

Meanwhile, the two over your comms continued speaking, though you couldn’t understand most of it due to static. Fiddling with the volume did little to nothing; it must’ve taken too much damage in your escape from the hunters. Hell knows you took a lot more damage than you had taken in the basement, and you hadn’t even reached the second floor. 

Shit. Where were Parker and Jessica? Hadn’t it been long enough? Where was your extraction point? Was it even in this building? They’d gone quiet a while ago, and hadn’t been responding to your attempts at communication— not even when you’d told them about going back down to the waters of the basement to look for your teammate. 

Panting, you caught the reflection of your grayish visage in the windows of the elevator and frowned. Not attractive…at all. You looked dead already. 

And you may very well be, after this. 

“ _—kay, okay, okay! Stay calm, I’m coming_!” The second voice from earlier, the more logical and composed one, faded in and out over your comms, accompanied by an annoying whistling. “ _Where are you now?_?!”

“ _I’m closing in on first floor Section C_!” Your eyes moved with little motivation to the area marker, just barely visible from the little space provided between the levels. Section D. Man, could this place choose a language? No offense to the poor bastards who lived in this city, but they could afford to choose one fucking language to stick to. 

The voiced faded from the signal again, and you heaved a sigh, standing with little black dots dancing across the vision of your one good eye. This…was going to require a little pain. 

Glancing down at your arm, you eyed the four-inch-long spines protruding from your red skin from both sides and gulped. No, this was gonna hurt like a bitch. _Parker, where are you_?

Deciding it was now or never, you grasped the needle-like protrusion like you had in the basement and pulled— _hard_. 

You screamed, faltering for a moment as the spike in your arm barely moved a centimeter. Black overcame your vision, but you held onto consciousness like a vice, with sheer will and pulled again. Your injured eye hurt form being squeezed shut so hard, and you sobbed a deep noise in your chest before pulling the spike all the way out. 

“Hahhhuh…” You dropped it to the floor and swayed as your eye struggled to focus on your surroundings. Everything was….fuzzy. Everything…hurt...so bad. 

One more….

Grasping the other spike, you gave a huge but wavering tug as some of your strength left you with the blood suddenly rushing out of your arm. Jesus…God, someone, help…

A scream of agony and a harsh wave of nausea later, and you were lying prone on the hard metal floor, bleeding out. 

“ _Ah! Wh-wha— Grinder, did you hear that_?” The voice from before asked. For the first time since first hearing them, you debated answering. It had to have been your screams he’d just heard.

“ _How could _I_ have heard anything? I’m two freakin’ buildings over. Just hang tight, and get that C4 going, will you!? I’m gonna need a path up too when I get there!_” 

“ _Gotcha, gotcha_!” 

Who were these idiots? Was this some attempt at recon from some sort of…Neo-Umbrella? You thought as you bit back some of the pain and stood. Hopefully, adrenaline would make this easier. Without your knife, which was still presumably lodged in the belly of that freak fish, you had to use your bare, aching fingertips to pry the elevator door open. 

After that, it was just a matter of grasping the second floor’s metal ledge and pulling yourself up. The sight of your arm steadily gushing blood was terrifying. You needed a bandage, pronto. 

Crawling your way onto the second floor platform, you heaved a gasp and drug yourself out of the elevator chute. Dragging yourself forward, you came to a rest just outside the elevator and looked back on the trail of blood you'd left behind. Your arm was bleeding profusely now, and it must've been fucking filthy from whatever dirt and germs were on the floor. 

Rolling onto your back, you ejected a single green pill from the designated zipper on your vest, and chewed the wet, slightly degraded substance with a grimace. Bitter. But it would help; hopefully enough that you wouldn't die. 

Sitting up, you searched with one eye for anything, any piece of cloth you could use to bandage yourself, but found nothing. Soon, you found you didn't have the time for it anyway— unmistakable galloping of heavy feet were coming your way, double-time. 

Was it the blood? You wondered, jumping up as quick as you could and pulling your last flash bang from your belt. You eyed the area, and flinched as a hunter caught sight of you and roared, horrible wet teeth glistening like the gigantic mouth of a lizard. 

" _"Charges are set! I'm ready to blow this pile! Things'll get hairy after this_!"

Shit! What were those two up to now? You glanced at the map behind a glass on the wall, and saw that Section C was just down the hall from you. Great, if only you'd stayed hidden for a minute longer...the idiot might've drawn all the hunters straight to the first floor with that C4 he was talking about. 

" _I'm a little tied up! Just be careful_!" Your heart leapt into your throat as you thought (not for the first time) how careless and utterly stupid these two were. They didn't even have the thought to check if anyone else was listening? 

Were they some kind of vigilantes? They _couldn't_ be Neo-Umbrella, no way that organization would hire someone as loose-lipped and undignified as either of these jokers...well, the one, in particular. Jackass, was a fitting handle for sure. 

"Fuck you!" You growled, raising your rifle and shooting a hunter straight through the eye as another one came around the corner. 

You shot once more, but found yourself having to reload— except, it was just coming to you now, that you only had one clip left. Thirteen shots after this...and you were only on the second floor. 

With some of your strength returned, and your arms no longer pouring blood like little holes in a barrel of wine, you ducked under the swing of one hunters arm and wove through the others like you were trying to tie a knot with your steps. You'd been in some crazy situations before, like back in the Middle East when you were younger— close quarters. But this was fucking insane.

You growled once more as a hunter knocked your face again, on the side with the closed eye. You gave that one a cut behind the knee for that, and managed to make your way past five of them in the crowded hall, leaping painfully over a stack of milk crates and ajar promotion signs. Landing on your bad leg, you choked back a cry, and flung a plastic crate at the head of the nearest hunter. 

You had one flash bang left...but you wouldn't use it yet. Something told you, that now wasn't the time. 

Where was that explosive the idiot man had been talking about? Shouldn't it have gone off already? 

You just had enough time to see the identifying Section B sign on the wall when a nearby structure of metal shelves fell from it's upright position and directly onto your head. Landing on the ground with a painful thud, your head swam and your ribs throbbed as the hunters converged around you. 

Is this it? You asked yourself dazedly, the colorful overhead lights blurring together like some kind of Rob Zombie music video. At least...the end wouldn't be prolonged any more. Hunters weren't known to eat their victims, just to kill them brutally. 

Swallowing, you tried drawing in a breath and choked on a lungful of air when a hunter hopped up on the shelves that had fallen on top of you. You couldn't move your legs, or your hips...and your gun had flown somewhere ahead with the fall of this shelf. With some difficulty, you drew your hand up and pressed down on the relay button of your comma unit. 

"Lieutenant...Parker." You choked out painfully. "Je-Jessica...find a way out. Please. Just...go. I'm sor—" You cut off, your vision going dark with the agony and lack of oxygen. "...not gonna make...I can't...I...can't..m- _move_." 

You couldn't breathe.

Forgive me, Parker. This isn't your fault....and I don't care who they are. I hope those two...idiots...make it out....

Just as you had let go and begun to lie still for certain death by suffocation or by hunters to meet you, there was a tremendous explosion, a sound like a cannon going off. The floor beneath your ribs trembled. All at once, the screeches and thuds of several hunters as they were blown away met your ears, and shelf holding your lower body fell away. You were still just on the edge of consciousness, however, and could only make out a mess of reptilian feet walking around you amid a cloud of smoke. 

What happened? You tried to lift your head but couldn't, and instead gasped for breath like you'd just come up for air after a ten minute no-suit dive. 

" _I fucking heard that! Dude, what_ was _that_?" The more logical vice asked over your commas unit. It was loud, but the commotion of the hunters around you was louder, and they paid you no mind. " _Do you have someone else with you?! Did you find a civ? Answer me, dammit_!" 

Fuck. You hurt everywhere. But...

There was a door off to your left. You saw it with your good eye. You also saw a few splatters of blood from your eye, and maybe from a split lip, fall to the already-bloody floor. Fantastic. 

" _Dude! Answer me, man! Jackass, fucking respond_!" 

Coughing, and still taking in greedy lungfuls of air, you crawled slowly towards the door and by some miracle, managed to open it because it hadn't been shut all the way. Swallowing the taste of blood, you pulled yourself inside, leaving your rifle behind. 

_"Forkball, this is Grinder requesting backup! My partner needs an evac out here! He's in the communications building! That ugly son of a bitch with the solar circle at the top! Can anyone hear me_!?" Through the rushing of your ears, you could make out the lack of response from his organization. " _Does anyone else remain in the city who can give us some aid? Anyone_!?" Radio silence. " _Quint!! Fucking answer me_!!" 

Panting, you locked the door you were sitting with your back to, and weighed your options. 

You were relatively safe in the room...and you'd just escaped death as it was. You were still seeing spots of black and bright colors that you were sure wouldn't be there. Hell. Why did you take this job in the first place? 

" _Anyone!? Is anyone there?! I thought I heard someone just a minute ago! My partner needs fucking help! I can't reach him over the radio. The hammer is about to drop on this fucking place, there's no time for this shit! Quint_?!!" 

You sighed, touching your eye gingerly before scooting off to the side and opening the door behind you. 

Peeking out, you saw one hunter, disappearing into a gaping, smoking hole in the floor...well, guess you knew where the shelf that had fallen on you went. You opened the door further, and spotted your rifle, dangling by the strap from a smoking edge of the crater. That fresh hole had just been blown almost directly under where you had been sprawled, trapped under a hunter. 

Is that where Jackass was? This Quint guy? You asked yourself bleakly, hearing the sound of gunfire coming from the floor under you, each shot made clear and distinct by the gaping hole. 

Yeah, he was there...and he was still alive. Did that mean his comms unit was malfunctioning now, too? 

Watching your rifle sway in the air, you closed your eyes and listened for the thud as your rifle strap burned away, and the gun fell to the first floor of the building. Well, at least there was no chance of wasting a bullet during misfire. You still had your last loaded clip locked in your vest. 

Closing the door, you leaned back against the wooden surface and reached up, almost reluctantly to your comms unit. You pressed down on the relay button. 

"Grinder, this is Sergeant Major Foley of the FBC." You winced, hearing the pained screams of the poor man a floor below you. Hopefully, there would still be a man to save by the time you got there. "Copy." 


End file.
